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Ed McMillen: Ubuntu Store Sold Super Meat Boy Without Permission, Has Yet To Pay

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Re: Ed McMillen: Ubuntu Store Sold Super Meat Boy Without Permission, Has Yet To Pay

#62
post #61
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. MySQL credentials in the binary.

Honest question: how could they have avoided that?

One obvious, safe way: set up an API on their servers, abstracting away the need to send actual MySQL calls over the Internet.

Re: Ed McMillen: Ubuntu Store Sold Super Meat Boy Without Permission, Has Yet To Pay

#63
post #61
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. MySQL credentials in the binary.

Honest question: how could they have avoided that?

If one must directly access the database from a client application, the right way is to make sure each user has an unique, secure database credential with only the minimal permissions necessary. However, direct database access is still a terrible idea in most cases, as it is a lot of work to prevent a resource starvation attack.

Re: Ed McMillen: Ubuntu Store Sold Super Meat Boy Without Permission, Has Yet To Pay

#64
I tried for nearly a year to get Google Chrome into the Ubuntu store. Each time I asked about it I got answers like "the relevant person is on vacation", "we'll get back to you", "sorry, forgot to respond". I eventually gave up. While I remain cranky about it I try to believe they are just not well organized and it wasn't anything malicious, which I hope is also the explanation here too.

Re: Ed McMillen: Ubuntu Store Sold Super Meat Boy Without Permission, Has Yet To Pay

#65
Hi, I just looked into it and the check to Tommy and Edmund from Canonical is in process for the 77 copies of Super Meat Boy. We have been working together since November to get it resolved, no piracy here just some miscommunication.

David Pitkin Canonical

Re: Ed McMillen: Ubuntu Store Sold Super Meat Boy Without Permission, Has Yet To Pay

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>a serious crime You keep using that word, I don't think it means what you think it means. Piracy is not a crime, much less a serious one. Murder, for example, is a serious crime. Please don't spout nonsense. Copyright infringement is a civil offense, not even a felony. That is not to say that what Canonical did - if the accusations are justified - is ethically sound. But please don't spread the bullshit propaganda o…

At least in the US, some forms of copyright infringement are crimes, as demonstrated by the Ninjavideo, TVshack, and Megaupload cases.

At least in the case of Megaupload, that remains to be seen.

Re: Ed McMillen: Ubuntu Store Sold Super Meat Boy Without Permission, Has Yet To Pay

#67
post #2

Pirates is way too heavy a term here. Canonical is large enough and the issue muddy enough that I don't think this is a warranted accusation. They're also shooting themselves in the foot, instead of coming to some kind of amicable arrangement they've now accused canonical of a serious crime which will lead to a response to that accusation rather than to a solution that would have been beneficial to all parties. If yo…

The SMB guys hold the Linux/FOSS community in pretty low regard: http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/g072l/super_meat_boy_... [1] So, I would take their current claim with a large grain of salt. --- [1] What's even sadder is Tommy (the programmer of the SMB team) clearly shows he knows nothing of Linux, the community, licensing, or even good programming for that matter. Here's a couple of examples: 1. There's a sc…

The SMB linux port of SMB was done by a third party developer, not the original team.

If you ran into the same issue I did (blank screen but sound) there's a fix here:

http://askubuntu.com/questions/151567/super-meat-boy-gives-b...

I have a feeling the issue might be at least partly caused with issues on OpenGL/SDL/X11 or something like that. I've had no end of issues with fullscreen games under Linux.

To be charitable here, we're talking about a 2 man team (who shipped a successful product on their own) rather than a large AAA dev with an actual QA dept. Tommy might not be the greatest programmer (I remember reading something he wrote where he had some strange views on threading) but I think criticism has to be offset against that.

And at the end of the day they shipped a Linux game before Steam on Linux was even announced, apart from that one issue it seems to work flawlessly (for me at least) under Ubuntu including actually recognising an Xbox360 pad which Braid didn't.

Re: Ed McMillen: Ubuntu Store Sold Super Meat Boy Without Permission, Has Yet To Pay

#68
post #16
post #2

Pirates is way too heavy a term here. Canonical is large enough and the issue muddy enough that I don't think this is a warranted accusation. They're also shooting themselves in the foot, instead of coming to some kind of amicable arrangement they've now accused canonical of a serious crime which will lead to a response to that accusation rather than to a solution that would have been beneficial to all parties. If yo…

>Pirates is way too heavy a term here. Yes, please reserve such defamatory language for nine year olds who download music, and not innocent corporations run by billionaires who distribute copyrighted material for profit without compensating its owners.

Don't forget 75 year old grandmothers who forget to lock down their home wifi router.

Re: Ed McMillen: Ubuntu Store Sold Super Meat Boy Without Permission, Has Yet To Pay

#70
post #65

Hi, I just looked into it and the check to Tommy and Edmund from Canonical is in process for the 77 copies of Super Meat Boy. We have been working together since November to get it resolved, no piracy here just some miscommunication. David Pitkin Canonical

77 copies in a year? The same game sold 20.000 copies on Launchday on the Xbox360. Seems like Linux gaming still has a long way to go. Steam isnt doing it for direct profit reasons either, they just want to push the software platform of their new console!

But dont get me wrong, i like the direction, its just that linux gaming is totally irrelevant from a market perspective.

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